Does your food safety plan pass the first time a buyer reads it?
Most do not. Not because the grower is careless, but because nobody who has read the rule and the recall notices looked at the plan before the buyer did. That is what I do.
I am a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual and the author of Comprehensive Food Safety for Microgreens. Thirty minutes on a video call, your plan in front of both of us, and you hang up with four things you did not have when you dialed.
Book the 30-minute plan checkThe four things you leave with
Not everything that could be better. The two or three things that would stop a purchase order or start a corrective action, ranked.
A one-rack farm needs fewer records than the internet says and more than most growers keep. You leave with the short list.
Most one-rack farms do not, and I will say so, even though it ends the conversation about hiring me.
Yours, written down, and true for your farm as it stands today.
How it works
- Step 1Book a slot and pay the $90.
The calendar is at the bottom of this page. Pick a time in the next two weeks.
- Step 2Send me what you have, the day before.
The hazard analysis worksheet from the book (Appendix B), the report from the ten-minute assessment at foodsafety.microgreensworld.com, or a photo of the notebook. No plan yet? Walk your room with your phone camera for two minutes instead: seed shelf, water source, harvest table, fridge. I can read a farm from that.
- Step 3Thirty minutes, line by line.
We go through your plan, or your video, and I tell you what a buyer would see and what a state inspector would write down.
- Step 4Notes in your inbox within one business day.
One page: the gaps in order, the records list, the PCQI answer, and the sentence. Yours to keep and to hand to the buyer.
Most one-rack farms do not need a PCQI. I will say so, even though it ends the conversation about hiring me.D. Andrew Neves, MSc, PCQI
This is for you if
- You sell to restaurants or retail, or at a market, or you are about to.
- A buyer has asked for your food safety plan, or asked whether you are “FSMA compliant,” and you were not sure what to say.
- You grow on one rack or a few, and you are the whole farm.
- You have a plan, a worksheet, or a notebook, and nobody outside the farm has read it.
This is not for you if
- You run a registered food facility that needs a written food safety plan under the Preventive Controls rule. That is a different engagement, and I will say so.
- You grow sprouts. That is a different rule with different hazards, and a different call.
- You want a plan written for you rather than checked. In 30 minutes you leave knowing what to write and in what order. Writing it is a separate conversation, and only if you ask.
Who you are talking to
D. Andrew Neves, MSc, PCQI. I publish Microgreens World and wrote Comprehensive Food Safety for Microgreens, now in its third edition. I have read the Produce Safety Rule with its 2024 water amendments and every FDA advisory from the 2026 seed outbreaks, and I have sat with growers who first heard about any of it from a line on a buyer’s form.
The plan check is the half day Alex bought in the book, cut to the part that matters. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is a food safety professional reading your plan the way the people who matter will read it.
$90for 30 minutes
Paid when you book. Notes within one business day. Move the slot with a day’s notice from the booking email; the fee buys the time, and the time gets used, so there are no refunds.
The plan check is 30 minutes. If it turns out you do not need me, I will say so in the first ten, and the rest of the call goes to whatever will help you most, usually the records list or the question your buyer asked.
Questions growers ask first
- Do I need to have read the book?
- No. It helps, because the hazard analysis worksheet in Appendix B is the fastest thing to walk through. If you do not have it, the two-minute video of your room works nearly as well.
- I am under the $25,000 sales floor. Is this still for me?
- The federal rule does not cover you, and I will confirm that on the call. Buyers do not check the floor before they ask for a plan. If a chef or a store has asked, yes.
- Will you tell me what my state requires?
- I will tell you what the federal rule asks and how to put the question to your state produce safety program, which has the final word. Part of the notes is that phone number.
- Can I send a video instead of a worksheet?
- Yes. Two minutes, phone camera, no narration needed: the seed shelf and its labels, where the water comes from, the harvest table, the inside of the fridge. Send it the day before.
- Phone or video?
- Video, so we are looking at the same page. Phone if you would rather.
- What happens to my plan and my video?
- They stay with me. Nothing from a plan check is published anywhere without your written permission.
- Can I move my slot?
- Yes, with a day’s notice, from the booking email. The slot is yours to move. It is not refundable.
Book the 30-minute plan check
Pick a time and pay the $90. Then send me what you have.
